An ideology without promise

The Washington Post ^ | Sept. 20, 2012 | Michael Gerson

[teflon9]

Yet a Republican ideology pitting the “makers” against the “takers” offers nothing. No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change. This approach involves a relentless reductionism. Human worth is reduced to economic production. Social problems are reduced to personal vices. Politics is reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class.

A few libertarians have wanted this fight ever since they read “Atlas Shrugged” as pimply adolescents. Given Romney’s background, record and faith, I don’t believe that he holds this view. I do believe that Republicans often parrot it, because they lack familiarity with other forms of conservatism that include a conception of the common good.

[teflon9]

I can't believe that a conservative Republican wrote this.

[henkster]

A conservative Republican did not write this.

[Ben Ficklin]

Gerson was George Bush’s evangelical speech writer. He was also influential on foreign policy and coined the “Axis of Evil” phrase.

[henkster]

Yeah but this piece, I don’t get. Was he also influential on the “compassionate conservatism?”

[Ben Ficklin]

Gerson said that compassionate conservatism is the theory that the govt should encourage the effective provision of social services without providing the service itself.

You can look this stuff up on the internet just as easy as I can.

[IronJack]

The Republican ideology may be “without promise,” but that’s not a bad thing, because it’s long on reality. The liberal ideology, by contrast, is llllllloooooonnnnnnggggg on promises, but falls way short on delivery. Let’s ask Stalin’s victims or Mao’s victims or Pol Pot’s victims or Castro’s victims whether they prefer “promise” or fulfilment.

[End Times Sentinel]

The problem in America today is the near eradication of families which was encouraged by the government inserting itself into the role of provider and fanned on by Hollywood “normalizing” divorce and illegitimacy for decades.

[Graewoulf]

If he is a “Conservative” then what is he conserving?

Here is my 2 cents: Republicans and Democrats have been guilty of buying votes by promising FREE STUFF to potential voters according to the dictate of Karl Marx: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

This has led to a Polarized America. This polarization has increased as the number of those with ability has decreased and the number of those with needs has increased.

I call it the Federal Welfare Entitlement Plantation, with its Capitol located on the banks of the DeNile River, locally called the Potomac River.

Mailing address is 1600 Plantation Avenue, District of Corruption, Zip Code: Debt4U.

BTW, three guesses as to what happens when the 47 % becomes 51 % who pay no Personal Federal Income Taxes? (Your first two guesses don’t count).

[txrefugee]

“Compassionate conservatism” is joining the Democrat Socialists in giving freebies to The Poor without having the money to pay for it.

They use their children and grandchildren’s income as collateral on the loans they get from China to pay for this “compassion”. What could possibly go wrong with that? After all, they’ll be dead and gone when the can they’ve kicked for decades finally comes up against the brick wall. To hell with the generations enslaved by their debts.

[Zeppo]

A few libertarians have wanted this fight ever since they read “Atlas Shrugged” as pimply adolescents.

That gratuitous, cliched attack on 'libertarian' strawmen may make Gerson feel superior, but it is far from a reasoned refutation of 'libertarian' viewpoints. Gerson's writing could just as easily be compared unfavorably to a pimply sophomore's hurriedly-composed homework assignment.

Is the rest of his writing equally content-free? Based on that snippet, I see no reason to click through and waste my time reading anything more that he might have to say.

[Sherman Logan]

This crisis has a number of causes, including the collapse of working-class families, the flight of blue-collar jobs and the decay of working-class neighborhoods, which used to offer stronger networks of mentors outside the home. Perverse incentives in some government programs may have contributed to these changes, but this does not mean that shifting incentives can easily undo the damage.

This is actually a good and very conservative description of aspects of the mess we are in.

American society is crumbling from the bottom up. As the author says, government has caused some of these problems, but it has not caused all or possibly even most of them. Which is not to say that different policies can fix them.

A truly conservative POV recognizes that a functioning society is a complicated organism. That government can destroy much more easily than it can build. That taking away the counter-productive elements of government policy will not magically press a reset button putting us back to where we were before things started going downhill.

Or, as the Russians said after the USSR collapsed, "It's easier to turn an aquarium into fish soup than to turn fish soup into an aquarium."